Maddi is still fighting against the Phantom, but not just fighting against his pokemon. She's fighting against the shadows themselves! She had planned to use her Normal Type pokemon as a counter to the Phantom's ghosts, but thanks to the fact that he's making use of Shadow Pokemon that strategy seems to have become ineffective! Will she be able to pull through and find a way to win?

KedharS: Unfortunately, no, they don't.

JoshGamerV: Let's just say that the story element you are thinking of hasn't been abandoned, it's absolutely something I'm planning to return to at a later point. As for what it is? Well, we'll have to find out.

Aquahaze675: Shadow Pokemon are certainly powerful. That's the reason why the Phantom is working on creating them, after all. But that doesn't mean that they're impossible to beat with normal means. Harmonia is pretty damn powerful too, but there are still ways to fight against it. It's all a matter of figuring out how.

Rosealine gold: I checked it out. I'm pretty sure I can make that idea work. As for Maddi winning, well, we'll just have to see, now won't we?

Thunder Fire: That's a pretty interesting theory. I think it could certainly be a factor. If he is a Mechadoll, he's certainly got better specs than Misato. For one, he actually knows what a contraction is.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 505

"Wigglytuff, use dazzling gleam again!" Maddi ordered.

"Wiggly…" Wigglytuff coughed, the smoke closing in on him. His eyes flashed and he released another blast of shining light that struck the fog and hit the Spiritomb, but the shadowy sky quickly smothered the lights and Soul shrugged off the fairy attack, his injuries no big deal.

"So you aren't giving in? Excellent, that means I get to show off just how powerful my Shadow Pokemon really are," Valon said, expressing joy in his words with a voice devoid of any cheer. "Soul, use shadow rave."

"Spiritomb!" Soul gathered up darkness from the cloying miasma that surrounded him and drew in even more from the fog swirling across the battlefield. He took these shadows and channeled them into the ground, covering the dirt of the stadium in a blanket of darkness. From the ground, blades of shadows shot out, piercing and stabbing into Wigglytuff from all sides, the balloon pokemon letting out a wail of pain as the shadows wounded him.

"Wigglytuff!"

"Ouch, that looked like it hurt!" Lila said, wincing in sympathy for the pokemon. She squinted into the fog. "And it looks like it's still going!"

"Wigglytuff, hold on!" Maddi shouted. "Use stockpile to boost your defenses!"

In defiance of the shadows attempting to wear him down from both the sky and the ground, Wigglytuff inhaled, inflating his body and pushing the shadows away slightly with his boosted stats, though this had the unfortunate effect of causing him to inhale the shadows around him, causing him even more pain in turn.

"Raising your defenses won't be nearly enough, you're merely postponing the inevitable, Whitmore," Valon chastised her, the smirk clear in his voice even with his face obscured. "Soul, use shadow rave once more."

"Wigglytuff, go up into the air!" Maddi quickly ordered. As the ground turned dark again, Wigglytuff squeezed himself down and then sprang up into the air, puffing up, inflating his body to remain airborne like the big balloon that he was.

"Well! Now that IS amusing!" Valon laughed, actually surprised by the tactic. "Of course, now you're simply floating among the shadows. Can't imagine that will be good for you."

"Oh, no, he's right!" Lila gasped, seeing that Wigglytuff was being eaten away by the shadowy sky swirling around him.

"As long as the weather is like this, things aren't going to go well," Akira guessed. "But I assume that Wigglytuff doesn't really have any good ways to change the weather."

Maddi wasn't even thinking things from that angle. She was holding her arm in front of her mouth to stave off inhaling more of the shadows, coughing painfully as she watched the Spiritomb for openings, not sure what to do. There was no way that pokemon was unbeatable. It looked like any other pokemon. And yes, it was a Shadow Pokemon, and that meant it was powerful. But still. The Phantom had used a Shadow Pokemon in the battle royale, and it had been knocked out right after Maddi had dropped out of the tournament. And that other guy, K, he had been using Shadow Pokemon as well, right? That Magnezone, and it had been knocked out as well. So Shadow Pokemon weren't unbeatable. The question was how she could go about doing it. She needed to find a way to win.

"Soul, now that the Wigglytuff is in the air, why don't you take care of it with shadow storm?" Valon ordered.

"Spiritomb!" Shadows shot out of the stone Soul surround, whirling around and blending with the fog, spinning faster and faster until it whipped up into a tornado, raging across the battlefield at the floating Wigglytuff.

"Wigglytuff!" Maddi shouted, the spout of shadow engulfing her Wigglytuff and beating him around like an actual balloon in a tornado, battering him with blades of shadow and draining away his health as it roared, letting loose an ominous howl.

The tornado flung Wigglytuff into the ground, Wigglytuff bouncing off the ground with his rubbery balloon body before coming to a stop, sliding across the dirt, getting badly cut up. Wigglytuff let out a gasp of choking pain, the injured pokemon trying to stand up as the tornado died down.

"Oh, that had to hurt!" Lila groaned in sympathy for the pokemon. Akira winced in pain and Dakota gulped, breaking out into a cold sweat as she saw Maddi shaking. Though maybe it was the whirling of the shadows.

"Wigglytuff," Maddi coughed out. "Use swallow, then try dazzling gleam again!"

Wigglytuff swallowed, regaining a good chunk of his health, even though it reduced his defenses. His eyes flashed and he sent out more rays of light trying to break through the shadows, these rays actually striking Soul and doing some significant damage, the force of the blows knocking the stone off the ground and sending it rolling, the ghost pulled along with it.

"Now, quick!" Maddi shouted, sensing an opportunity to strike back. "Use play rough!"

"Wigglytuff!" Wigglytuff bounced off the ground and shot towards Soul as the Spiritomb tried to regain his bearings. Wigglytuff raised his fists and began punching the ghost pokemon with as much force as he could, unleashing a barrage of blows infused with fairy magic.

Valon smirked.

"Shadow break."

Soul reared back and slammed into Wigglytuff, his body surrounded by destructive shadows. Wigglytuff was knocked backwards, the large pokemon bouncing painfully off the ground from the force of the move, grunting.

"Wigglytuff!" Maddi cried. She didn't realize just how vulnerable her pokemon was after his defenses were reduced.

"Now, finish it with shadow fire," Valon ordered, smiling victoriously, his green eyes shining. Soul opened his mouth, shadowy flames erupting from deep within and engulfing Wigglytuff, the balloon pokemon crying out in pain.

"Wigglytuff!" Wigglytuff wailed, thrashing on the ground as he burned, the shadows eating away at him before he finally crumpled, his bouncy body deflating in defeat as he lost consciousness. Maddi winced as she stared at her pokemon, coughing.

"Sorry, Wigglytuff," she apologized, recalling her pokemon. She had underestimated Shadow Pokemon due to their showing in the battle royale, and now she was paying the price. Of course they were strong, of course the Phantom was strong.

Maddi fumbled for her next pokeball but couldn't grasp it, falling to her feet in a coughing fit as the shadows grew thicker around her.

The Phantom… the Phantom was strong. She couldn't deny it, and never expected otherwise. But she didn't understand just how hard it was going to be to fight him. She had expected Wigglytuff's type advantage to be enough to take care of the Spiritomb, it was the whole reason she had chosen to use her normal team. Maybe not a completely one-sided victory, but still. To have a pokemon lose a match with such a type advantage…

It was the Shadow Moves. A move that was super-effective against any type of pokemon? It just didn't seem real. But she couldn't deny what she had seen. The only moves that should have been effective against Wigglytuff were Poison and Steel type moves, but that had been neither. And Wigglytuff was still acting like he had been struck with one of them each time he got hit.

She rose to her feet, but she was still shaking. She had hoped that she would be able to put up a better fight than this, because she wasn't about to lose here. It was good that her Normal team was effective at dealing with ghosts. Now she just had to hope it could deal with Shadow Pokemon.

I'm a type specialist, she reminded herself. Now was her time to put those words to practice. Maybe even figure out a way to take out Shadow Pokemon with her own team.

"Good!" Lila announced with a sigh of relief, relaxing as she looked at Maddi stand back up. "Maddi's getting back in the game. I was afraid for a moment we would need to call the infirmary and have them send someone over."

Her words were meant to soothe the tense looks she imagined the audience was wearing seeing one of the trainers collapse, Lila's effort at trying to make this look less worrying than it actually was. But at the same time, a part of her did think it would be smart to call the infirmary, call anyone, really, and have them check out Maddi. She didn't know what this smoke was, but bathing in the shadow-filled sky and breathing it in like this couldn't be healthy.

In a situation like this, Maddi would have taken a deep breath to calm her nerves and re-center herself. But that wasn't the best advice to take in the current situation. So she reached up and unzipped her hoodie, then pulling out the collar of her shirt and draping it over her nose as a makeshift sort of mask to take short breaths in. She was breathing in stale air mixed with her own cold sweat and BO, but that was better than breathing that hurt.

Maddi grabbed her next pokeball with renewed vigor and flung it out. She didn't have time to be afraid, if she was afraid then she might collapse again. She was going in with this head-first and going to fight with everything she and her pokemon had. "Obstagoon, go!"

Maddi's next Normal pokemon was an interesting one she had caught on a trip to the Galar Region. Having gone to Hoenn a few times in her youth, she was well-aware that Zigzagoon were a native species there. So when she had heard that Galar had their own variant of Zigzagoon, one that was part Dark type, it had made her want to catch one, for use against Ghosts. And when she had evolved into Linoone, Maddi assumed that was it.

But then she had evolved again while training one night, and Maddi realized that she had something special in her hands for sure. Now the once black and white-furred Obstagoon stood on her hind legs and crossed her arms in front of her chest, her fur growing to resemble a strange vest, not unlike the punk wardrobe Maddi often wore.

"Maddi's next pokemon is a… a what? An Obstagoon? I've heard of Linoone before, what Hoenn native hasn't, they're great pokemon for cutting trees, smashing rocks, pushing boulders, surfing around, all sorts of things, but… Obstagoon?" Lila was confused. She looked to Dakota and Akira for clarification. Akira looked like he had no idea, but Dakota came to the rescue.

"One of the Galar variants," Dakota said. "Evolves from Linoone over there."

"That whole thing is so confusing," Lila laughed. Although she was keeping in character with the ditzy airhead role she always took on, she had, of course, been well-aware of what Obstagoon were. But as an announcer, it was part of her job to keep up an air of levity, and that was especially difficult now when there was an air of destructive fog.

"It's part Dark type so that will be good against ghosts," Dakota said. "Assuming, of course, types even matter at this point," she added under her breath.

"A pokemon that's a Normal type AND a Dark type?" Valon laughed. "My, you really did come into this fully prepared, now didn't you? Well, almost prepared, anyway."

"Obstagoon!" Maddi shouted, ignoring the Phantom's taunts. "Use snarl!"

"Obstagoon!" Obstagoon snarled, sending out a blast of dark energy in her menacing growl, the attack striking Soul but not doing a lot of damage.

"Oh, I see, so since you can't risk taking the full force of our Shadow Moves, you've decided to try and reduce our special attack?" Valon asked, raising his eyebrow. "Well, I'm not familiar with Galar Pokemon, but that's not a big concern. Any pokemon is still weak to shadows. Hit her with your shadow rave, Soul!"

"Spiritomb!" Soul growled, laughing madly as he infused the ground with more shadow energy to barrage the Obstagoon with.

Maddi wasn't fazed. Unlike before, when she had been too afraid of Valon and what his Shadow Pokemon could do, now she'd had more experience with them. She wasn't going to be cautious like she had been with Wigglytuff, especially since her Obstagoon didn't specialize in special moves either. No, Shadow Pokemon were a better-known quantity to her now, and she was going to get in while she could.

"Obstagoon! Go!"

"Obstagoon!" Obstacoon nodded. She shifted to once again be on four paws, and ran forward towards the Spiritomb, even as the ground beneath her feet was engulfed in shadows.

"Well, that's quite foolish," Valon observed with a smirk. "Where is there to run to? This comes from the ground itself!"

On cue, the ground beneath Obstagoon's feet erupted in powerful blades of shadow that pierced her fur, but neither Maddi nor Obstagoon was concerned with that. Valon was correct, after all, there was nowhere they could run to avoid the attack. So with that in mind, Maddi was fine with letting the attack work for them, instead.

"Obsta…" Obstagoon winced as she drew closer and closer to the Spiritomb, the choking fog and the blades from the ground stinging her badly. But that was still more than enough!

"Time for some payback, Obstagoon!" Maddi ordered. Obstagoon finally closed the distance between herself and Soul, rising up on her hind legs and raising her claws, darkness surging through them. She took all the pain that the Spiritomb had inflicted on her and pumped it into her attack, bringing her claws down in a downward X-slash that caused Soul to let out a cry in pain. But it wasn't even close to a finishing blow, Maddi knew. So she followed her orders with "okay, Obstagoon, now use snarl again to weaken him some more!"

"Obstagoon!" Obstagoon threw back her head and growled, the close-range sound attack hitting the ghost pokemon and making him wave around in the air in surprise before finally settling down, head still rattling as his special attack returned to what it was supposed to be.

"So, you think that reducing our special attack will be enough to keep your pokemon safe?" Valon asked. "Soul, remind her what happened to her Wigglytuff. Use shadow break."

"Spiritomb!" Soul threw back his swirling head, miasma from the sky gathering around him, and slammed it forward to barrage Obstagoon with the shadows.

Maddi smirked beneath her mask.

"Obstagoon, use obstruct," Maddi ordered, though she didn't really need to. Obstagoon had already prepared herself to use the move. Her arms crossed in front of her chest, she flung them out with a burst of force that deflected the shadows, moving so fast that Soul was caught completely off-guard by the disruptive strike. Seeing that Soul had been disrupted, Obstagoon quickly rushed in, taking advantage of the sharp decrease in his defenses.

"Now, use night slash!" Maddi shouted as Obstagoon raised her claws, darkness coursing through them. She struck Soul right in his weakest point, the thin line of energy where his ethereal body was connected to his rocky prison.

"SPIRITOMB!" Soul roared in pain, the powerful blow not only hitting him while his defenses were down, but landing a critical hit as well. The Spiritomb thrashed for a moment, but before he could recover Obstagoon was on him again, striking with more night slashes until the ghost pokemon stopped moving completely, receding back into the stone.

As the Spiritomb fainted, the shadowy fog surrounding the battlefield was lifted, revealing Obstagoon, panting and injured, but the victor.

"Valon's Spiritomb is unable to battle!" Lila cheered, happy that not just was the fog lifted but that the Phantom had lost a pokemon as well.

"Well, that was quite a performance," the Phantom mused, seemingly unbothered by the fact that Maddi had been able to defeat one of his Shadow Pokemon. "It isn't often that a trainer is able to take out one of my finely crafted weapons. But no matter. It cost you a pokemon, and your Obstagoon does not appear to be in the best of shape, either. This match is far from your victory, Whitmore. And you'll see that Shadow Pokemon are not so easy an opponent. Shade, you are next. I expect you to give a far better showing of the merits of Shadow Pokemon."

Valon sent out his next pokemon, his Gengar. The pokemon cackled as it emerged from the darkness of the pokeball, an aura of shadows appearing around it that went unseen to the majority of the people in the stadium.

"…The Phantom sure has a taste for pokemon with unnerving laughs," Lila slipped out before she could stop herself.

"So your pokemon is one that went down to a bout of friendly fire?" Maddi asked, scowling beneath her shirt. "I'm not worried. Obstagoon!"

"Obstagoon!" Obstagoon snarled, a sonic wave aiming directly at Valon's Gengar to reduce the pokemon's special attack. If either the pokemon or his trainer cared about that, it couldn't be seen on their faces, both of which were wearing smirks. In fact, the Gengar barely looked injured by the dark move in the first place, which pissed Maddi off considerably.

These Shadow Pokemon are just annoying, she griped to herself. Even a super-effective move didn't seem to be doing all that much damage.

Lila shivered as she looked at the battlefield. This wasn't good. She wanted to cheer for Madison, but she had to remain impartial! And not only that… she wasn't really sure there would be any point to cheering for her, anyway. That Spiritomb had been a strong pokemon, and that Gengar looked even stronger. If that was what Shadow Pokemon were…

She looked to her co-announcers and sighed, keeping the smile on her face as best she could. Dakota and Akira weren't performers, neither one could hide the anxiety that filled them as they looked out at the battlefield. So it was up to Lila to keep everyone's spirits up!

…No pun intended.

Maddi managed to overcome one Shadow Pokemon, but the Phantom still has two more up his sleeve! Will she be able to defeat them? Or will Valon and his weapons overwhelm her? She's definitely giving it her best, and maybe she even has a surprise up her sleeve, we'll have to find out!